All of these influences pushed McKinley in the direction of taking all of the islands. In November of the following year, he supposedly told a group of Methodist ministers visiting the White House that as he agonized over the question long into the night, God spoke to him and told him to take the Philippines. There are some difficulties with this account. The minister who recounted it, James F. Rousling, waited several years to relate the story, and, as the historian Lewis Gould has pointed out, the story strongly echoed a similar account that Rousling had given of a meeting with Abraham Lincoln after Gettysburg.44
In any case, there is less of a sense of a sudden epiphanic decision than a gradual shift in thinking within the administration that it was impossible not to take the Philippines. Witness Whitelaw Reid, the Republican editor of the New York Tribune and a close confidant of McKinley, as he discussed the archipelago in a July 1898 letter:
It is extremely doubtful whether [Spain] will be allowed to retain the Philippines—not because we want them, but because our people are so convinced of the cruelty and barbarity of Spanish rule over semi-civilized races, that they would consider themselves guilty of any subsequent cruelty if they remanded these islands to the Spaniards. Probably, if either France or England could take them without stirring up general European difficulties, we should be glad to get rid of them.45
The sense of Reid mentally throwing his hands in the air is too strong to ignore. But within two weeks the editor had adjusted his position. Now it was possible that the United States could “hold Manila” and possibly have a protectorate around the rest of the islands. By early October Reid had expanded his ambition again, convinced that “we must retain the whole of them anyway.”46 The archipelago became, for a great many Republicans, up to and including the president, something of an accidental acquisition: a large, unwieldy Christmas gift that, if nice, was also rather difficult to fit into the household.
McKinley’s views seem to have evolved in much the same way. Henry Cabot Lodge wrote on August 12 that “McKinley is firm about Cuba and Puerto Rico, but hesitant about what to do in the East.”47 The hesitation continued when McKinley gave his final instructions to the peace commission (which included Whitelaw Reid) before it set off to Paris. He told them to take Manila and the island of Luzon for the United States, but left the question of the other islands open. His Midwestern tour reassured him about the political side of things, however, and by late October he concluded that the United States had to take the Philippines. On October 25 he sent a cable to the commissioners in Paris:
There is a general feeling in the United States that whatever it might prefer to do, America is in a situation where it cannot let go. The interdependency of the several islands, their proximity to Luzon, the grave problem of what will become of the part we do not take are all being considered by the people. My opinion is that the well considered opinion of the majority believes duty requires we should take the Philippines.48
McKinley had decided; now the only question was how the United States would negotiate the acquisition of the Philippines: by simple right of conquest, or by something more involved?
The negotiations in Paris were between a defeated, decadent power and a vibrant young one, and Whitelaw Reid was strongly aware of the distinction. As the negotiators for the United States read out American demands, Reid was struck by the Spanish demeanor:
It was really a dramatic spectacle, [as] these provisions for deeding away the last vestige of their possessions in the world they had discovered and settled were slowly read. … [The Spanish] were all visibly moved; and old Montero looked as a Roman Senator might, when told that the Goths were at the gates.
The Spanish diplomats played the role convincingly at the Paris peace negotiations, whether out of genuine dismay or as a ploy to win better terms is not entirely clear. “You have had a great victory,” one of them said to Whitelaw Reid. “Now, you must prove your greatness by your magnanimity.”49
The scale of the Spanish defeat, however, was simply too large and the internal position of their government too shaky for Spanish negotiators to manage much. Nor could they induce the other powers to come to their assistance. The Spanish begged various powers, including, in a sign of desperation, America’s traditional ally Russia, to intervene and get the United States to moderate its demands. It was not to be. Both Britain and Russia refused to get involved, preferring for the Philippines to fall to the Americans rather than to a potential European rival. The Germans, despite their provocations in Manila Bay, also refused to attempt an intervention, though the daughter of the German ambassador did find time to say to Reid that “I was against you in your war. I was on the side of the little dog. Whatever his faults, at any rate I wish he had taken a good bite out of you.” Spain’s position at the bargaining table worsened in early November when the Republicans suffered only marginal losses in the midterm elections. Theodore Roosevelt, back from a stint in Cuba, pulled out a narrow victory for the governorship of New York. McKinley’s position was assured, and that guaranteed little in the way of generosity from the American negotiators.50
The result was a treaty, signed on December 10, 1898, that gave the United States everything it wanted. Cuba was independent, although Cuban debt remained with Spain. Puerto Rico and several other small Caribbean islands became American territories. Guam was taken by the United States. The entirety of the Philippines became American in return for a $20 million payment to the Spanish.
Though he had won an enormous amount from the Spanish, it was not clear that McKinley would be able to get the treaty ratified. There was strong anti-imperialist sentiment in the United States. Buying the Philippines from Spain could not disguise the fact that an American empire was being built. McKinley scheduled the ratification vote for early February to give himself plenty of time to campaign, and set about winning the Senate to his side. In addition, McKinley organized and sent a civilian fact-finding mission to the Philippines to report back how best the United States could resolve the tensions between the two sides. The first Philippine Commission, led by Cornell University president Jacob Gould Schurman, an avowed anti-imperialist, set off for the islands in late January.
It was not clear that the commission would reach the islands in time. In the Philippines, the treaty added to what was already a tense situation. The American and Philippine units had been sitting opposite each other on a line through the outskirts of Manila since the fall of the city. In the south and west, the American line consisted of the old Spanish fortifications, a row of blockhouses and entrenchments. In the southern suburbs, the line ran along the Concordia Creek and the Pasig and San Juan Rivers. Near where it left the San Juan River, the line was cut by a pipe that led from the city to its water supply, a reservoir controlled by the insurgents. Finally, as the line pushed northwest toward the beach, the American defenses fell behind the Spanish blockhouses, crossed over the Manila and Dagupan Railway, the capital city’s major land connection to the rest of the archipelago, and reached the shore. Along the entire line, roughly 15,000 American troops faced about 13,000 Filipino troops. Both sides had fortified themselves by digging trenches and putting up earthworks.
Realities on the Ground
Each side eyed the other warily. The relationship, shaky to start with, had been poisoned by the events of August 13. The Filipinos felt betrayed by the American refusal to allow them into Manila. General Merritt’s handling of the situation contributed to the problems. The day after Manila capitulated he had issued a communiqué to the Philippine people, laying out American policy. It was a brusque, authoritative document that, for all appearances, assumed uncontested U.S. control of the islands. By August 18 Theodore Wurm was hearing from his regimental comrades that “the Insurgents were acting ugly.”51
Merritt was smart enough to appoint a liaison between the Americans and insurgents, Maj. J. Franklin Bell. Bell spent much of the following months negotiating with the insurgent commanders. Through Bell, a rough modus vivendi was arranged.
The insurgents agreed to turn the pumping station at the reservoir back on so that the city would have fresh water, and Merritt agreed to a number of insurgent demands, including permission for insurgent officers to enter Manila carrying their sidearms.
This uneasy truce might have paved the way for a cordial denouement had not McKinley intervened. Wanting someone with expertise in the Philippines to accompany the American negotiating team in Paris, McKinley ordered General Merritt to France and replaced him with his second in command, Gen. Elwell Otis. Otis, trained at Harvard Law School, had a legal mind, though he had spent almost all of his life afterward in the army. We have already seen his view of the insurgents. Putting him in charge of the situation was not quite throwing a match in a pool of gasoline. It was close, though.
Otis started things off badly in early September by issuing a lengthy letter to Aguinaldo laying out the transgressions and offenses of the insurgents since the occupation of Manila and demanding that the Army of Liberation withdraw completely from the Manila area. Aguinaldo agreed to modify the lines, but not to withdraw completely.
In the fall months, the situation grew increasingly tense. There were confrontations between individual soldiers and between Otis and insurgent officers. None of this was helped by the fact that Otis and Dewey were also arguing over policy, most notably over how strongly Dewey should enforce naval control not just in Manila Bay, but in inland waterways like the Pasig River, much of the length of which ran directly between American and insurgent lines. In addition, Aguinaldo’s own position was less than completely assured. He was on the one hand arguing with a group in Hong Kong—the so-called Hong Kong Junta—who represented the interests of a large number of wealthy factions, and on the other hand having trouble controlling his own subordinate officers, especially the ones in the Manila area, who were growing increasingly frustrated with the standoff with the U.S. Army.
The close proximity of the American and Filipino soldiers had also caused a great deal of friction over the past six months. As one soldier wrote in December 1898:
I believe it only a matter of time when there will be a clash, for the two armies’ outposts are within a mile or two of each other, and a single shot from either side would precipitate a general engagement.52
To this should be added Filipino frustration over not being allowed to occupy Manila, American frustration with the living conditions, a growing belief on the part of many of the volunteer soldiers that—with the end of the Spanish-American War—their term of service was up, and American racial attitudes. Exacerbating these factors was boredom. The surrender of the Spanish garrison had left the American soldiers with little to do for months afterward. The result, that fall, was a turn to anything that would provide entertainment. Cockfighting became popular. Venereal disease rates—a sign of the oldest form of entertainment—jumped. The men drank anything they could find: beno, a potent native liquor, was popular, as was the beer served in bars set up by American breweries almost immediately after the fall of Manila. The drinking caused particular problems, as drunken soldiers misbehaved, brawled, and fell prone to using “contumacious and insulting language” to their officers.53
The result was a series of confrontations on larger and smaller scales between the two forces. As Ernest Hewson, a soldier with the First California Regiment, remembered in January 1899: “Where these sassy niggers used to greet us daily with a pleasant smile and a Benhos Dias, Amigo, they now pass by with menacing looks, deigning not to notice us at all.”54 Gunfire between the two lines was not infrequent. A number of times, large units of both Filipino and American soldiers were on the brink of attacking each other, as on December 21, when General Anderson assembled four thousand troops to attack Filipino units disputing the position of an American sentry.
Though the incidents were settled short of open conflict, the situation was chaotic and tense when the news of the Treaty of Paris arrived in January 1899. Aguinaldo issued a public pronouncement in reaction to the news. “I hoped that once the Paris conference was at an end my people would obtain the independence promised them. … But it did not turn out thus.” This, from “a nation which has arrogated itself the title, ‘champion of oppressed nations,’ ” Aguinaldo continued. Surely, he said, “the conscience of mankind may pronounce its infallible verdict as to who are the true oppressors of nations and the tormentors of human kind.” Thus, Aguinaldo said, “My government is ready to open hostilities. … Upon their heads be all the blood which may be shed.”55
Despite the harsh words, however, Aguinaldo was not declaring war quite yet. The treaty had not yet been ratified by the U.S. Senate—which would meet again in early February 1899—and Aguinaldo believed that anti-imperialist sentiment in the United States would prevent that ratification. And Aguinaldo had other problems at that point. A local movement in northern Luzon—the Guardia de Honor de Maria, founded by the Dominicans—was becoming more and more resistant to his control, blaming the revolutionaries for the arrest of many of the local friars, Dominican and otherwise. The Guardia began to organize against the insurrectos. In late December 1898, the province of Tarlac, well north of Manila, had broken out into near rebellion. Aguinaldo was forced to move troops from around Manila to deal with the revolt, unsuccessfully; the problems continued into the month of February and after.56
But if the news of the treaty did not lead to open fighting, it did dramatically increase tensions on both sides of the line, as the insurgents and soldiers continued to eye each other warily. A sense of inevitable conflict began to seep through both sides; war at least would break the tension of the months of waiting. “Insurgent scares getting to be a chestnut,” remembered John Russater of the First North Dakota on January 11.57 On January 19 Otis wrote to Dewey that “the insurgent army is becoming very tired of doing nothing and demands blood.”58 Two days later he wrote, “I am convinced that the insurgents intend to try their hand in a very short time—how soon I cannot tell.”59
Otis and the other American officers worried most about a simultaneous attack from outside the city and an uprising in the streets. This would force the Americans to fight two battles at once, in opposite directions. Their worry was justified. Aguinaldo and his officers had organized military units inside Manila and covertly brought in arms for them with orders to attack should fighting start.
In the end, the decision to start the war was taken out of the hands of both commanders. The break came finally on February 4, 1899. Exactly what happened to start the fighting has long been disputed, but the general outlines are reasonably clear. The area surrounding the pipe that ran from the reservoir into Manila was particularly touchy. The First Nebraska Regiment was positioned there in such a way as to be surrounded on three sides by Philippine forces. Because the Americans lacked sufficient numbers to garrison the entire line, the defense actually consisted of a series of outposts, backed up by central reserve forces. The isolation of each outpost, combined with an insurgent habit of infiltrating in and out of American lines, made the Nebraskans edgy.
On the evening of February 4, a patrol of soldiers from the First Nebraska was moving outside a village that both sides claimed. Near Blockhouse 7, occupied by the Filipinos, the patrol encountered a group of insurgents. The insurgents and later Filipino historians claimed that the American soldiers fired without provocation. The American soldiers and historians believed that the Americans fired after the armed and advancing Filipinos refused an order to halt. What is not in dispute is that shots were fired, the American patrol raced back to its lines, and a general exchange of fire began all along the First Nebraska’s front. This fire soon spread to other parts of the line, and quickly both side’s forces were engaged in a chaotic fight in the darkness. There was little chance for Otis to control things; most of the organizing was done at the regimental level and below.
Most historians have focused on the question of whether one side or another deliberately started the war to gain an advantage, whether it was Aguinaldo provoking a conf
lict to cement his control, or McKinley starting something to help with the Senate vote on the ratification of the Treaty of Paris. What historians have tended to ignore, however, is why this overnight incident became the actual start of the war. There had been similar incidents and encounters, some even on a scale resembling that of the night of February 4, although admittedly without exchanges of fire. All of those incidents had been dealt with by negotiation, and a feeling on both sides that war was not wanted. What made February 4 different?
There is one obvious part to the answer. The Treaty of Paris made it clear to both sides that an amicable and mutually agreeable solution to the differences between the Americans and Filipinos was unlikely. After news of the treaty reached the archipelago, the justification for restraint lost much of its force for both sides.
There are other elements, however. Aguinaldo, despite the centralization of military and political power in his own hands, did not tightly control his forces. The Army of Liberation consisted of a variety of units loyal to a variety of factions. Soldiers were often loyal to their officers, who saw themselves as cooperating with rather than subordinating themselves to higher command. And those men and officers were frustrated by months of waiting and a series of apparent setbacks to their cause. Aguinaldo’s prestige had also suffered because of his continuing accommodations with Otis. The result, it seems, on February 4, was less a planned assault on American lines than a spontaneous and unorganized attack. The surprise in the higher Filipino command seems to support this interpretation. A planned simultaneous uprising within Manila was not ready, and Aguinaldo himself was away at a social event when the shooting started.
Finally, the American response went some way toward determining the course of events. Brig. Gen. Arthur MacArthur, who commanded the troops north of the city, had, in the months leading up to February 4, laid out a relatively detailed contingency plan. He was particularly concerned with the vulnerability of his defensive lines. In that area the Americans held a line south of the old Spanish fortifications. They were—as everywhere else—thinly spread. MacArthur felt that vulnerability intensely, and decided that in the case of an attack, the best response was not to wait but to launch an immediate counterattack to drive the insurgents back and give the Americans some breathing room. This was a reasonable response to a difficult tactical matter, but it guaranteed that any outbreak of fighting could potentially trigger an American assault. A few months earlier there had been room for hesitation and negotiation, and a chance to draw back from the edge. Now there was none. Both sides expected a war to start, and both sides got what they expected. “Hell has broke loose at last,” thought Private William Henry Barrett of the Second Oregon Regiment.60
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